Korean Workers Need To Make Space For Robots, Minister Says (bloomberg.com) 26
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: South Koreans must learn how to work alongside machines if they want to thrive in a post-pandemic world where many jobs will be handled by artificial intelligence and robots, according to the country's labor minister. "Automation and AI will change South Korea faster than other countries," Minister of Employment and Labor Lee Jae-kap said in an interview Tuesday. "Not all jobs may be replaced by machines, but it's important to learn ways to work well with machines through training."
While people will have to increase their adaptability to work in a fast-changing high-tech environment, policy makers will also need to play their part, Lee said. The government needs to provide support to enable workers to move from one sector of the economy to another in search of employment and find ways to increase the activity of women in the economy, he added. The minister's remarks underline the determination of President Moon Jae-in's government to press ahead with a growth strategy built around tech even if it risks alienating the country's unions -- an important base of support for the ruling camp -- in the short term. "New jobs will be created as technology advances," Lee said. "What's important in policy is how to support a worker move from a fading sector to an emerging one." The government is looking to help with this transition by expanding its employment insurance program to 21 million people, or more than 40% of the population, by 2025. "The program is part of a government initiative to provide financial support in the form of insurance for every worker in the country, whether they are artists, freelancers or deliverymen on digital platforms," adds Bloomberg.
"Separately, the government is providing stipends for young people to encourage them to keep searching for work, as their struggle to stay employed amid slowing economic growth has been made tougher by the pandemic."
While people will have to increase their adaptability to work in a fast-changing high-tech environment, policy makers will also need to play their part, Lee said. The government needs to provide support to enable workers to move from one sector of the economy to another in search of employment and find ways to increase the activity of women in the economy, he added. The minister's remarks underline the determination of President Moon Jae-in's government to press ahead with a growth strategy built around tech even if it risks alienating the country's unions -- an important base of support for the ruling camp -- in the short term. "New jobs will be created as technology advances," Lee said. "What's important in policy is how to support a worker move from a fading sector to an emerging one." The government is looking to help with this transition by expanding its employment insurance program to 21 million people, or more than 40% of the population, by 2025. "The program is part of a government initiative to provide financial support in the form of insurance for every worker in the country, whether they are artists, freelancers or deliverymen on digital platforms," adds Bloomberg.
"Separately, the government is providing stipends for young people to encourage them to keep searching for work, as their struggle to stay employed amid slowing economic growth has been made tougher by the pandemic."
Which new jobs (Score:3)
Because I've been hearing this since the 90s. Meanwhile productivity keeps skyrockting and wages stagnate. [flowingdata.com] Supply and demand work both ways. If productivity goes up and wages stay the same or go down that means there's less demand for labor. And it means Automation is to blame, because you're making more stuff and paying less wages because there's less demand for labor.
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Really? Then explain this graph: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/se... [stlouisfed.org]
GPP's chart is wages. Yours is personal income. They are not the same thing.
"Personal Income" includes government benefits and income from interest and dividends.
Productivity improvements since 1975 have often been the result of capital investments. Much of the increased value has gone to the owners of capital in the form of interest, dividends, and rising stock prices.
The problem is that people on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder don't benefit much from that. People on higher rungs, with their 4
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Wait, that graph isn't even showing averages, it's showing an aggregate?
That graph is wholly fucking worthless for the purposes of this discussion. If you're not looking at the median, you aren't looking at anything worth looking at.
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How could someone know what jobs are there in the future? We don't have a right to a job anyway. If someone can have a tool or machine that can build themselves a car, why should they pay me to get it done? My existence at that point is holding people back and has to be accommodated for?
Just because I exist means a more efficient and better method of production is eliminated?
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How could someone know what jobs are there in the future?
At least for the near future, we can make predictions by extrapolating current trends.
So it is likely that manufacturing employment will continue to fall while the number of service sector jobs will increase. The income gap between educated workers and uneducated workers will continue to widen.
If someone can have a tool or machine that can build themselves a car, why should they pay me to get it done?
They shouldn't. Nobody is saying we should hold back technology adoption. But we should have an adult conversation about how our society is going to adapt.
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Exactly. Because people are still going to need to live, and desperate people will do desperate things to survive. Food and water are critical, and if they cannot be obtained without a job, they're going to be shoplifted. And it's extremely hard to
All in favor - Raise Hand please (Score:1)
I'm cool with robots working along side people and a massive number of jobs lost as long as there is a corresponding
- 50% reduction in the number of elected officials, staff members, appointed office holders and government bureaucracy
- 50% reduction in executive leadership positions in public companies, private companies, non-profits, schools, colleges
- A top-line global revenue tax on companies, non-profits with no deductions, no accounting gimmicks, no jurisdiction shopping. The current profits based tax
Re:Obligatory. (Score:4, Interesting)
The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots.
If you're sending robots off to war, tell me again what your duty is as a citizen of [random country] that somehow sees value in that activity?
Do you really think any other country is going to "win" when battling Chinese or Indian robot armies? (I'm reminded of how deadly, ants can be. Numbers matter.)
Who exactly declares a "winner" on the robotic battlefield? And with a billion human citizens still representing your "defeated" enemy, THEN what?
As bad as conventional war is, there used to at least be a fucking point in the end.
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Yeah, the guy with the most, wins. The Russians didn't have a lot of guns, but they had a lot of men willing to fight the Germans and they did, when the British (commonwealth) and the Americans wouldn't. The British contributed spies and superior technology (radar, sonar, code-breaking) and the Americans contributed fast firepower (bombers), to defeat the Germans.
During that war, it wasn't about territory, it was about manufacturing and training, with the Allied forces working to eliminate the massive h
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Yes, robot destroying robot, is pointless. So those robots will be pointed at living people. At worst, the robots become a proxy.
Uh, when considering dismissing Asimov's laws for the sake of Greed, you really think the "worst" is a robotic proxy on the battlefield?
That "proxy", will become human annihilation. Not sure what makes you assume a robot with advanced AI, would consider themselves inferior to humans in any way, and therefore come to the same conclusion we humans do with obsolete shitware.
Sadly, the science fiction isn't hard to turn into reality here. Humans are stupid enough to destroy themselves with nothing more than
There is an easy way to deal with surplus labor (Score:1)
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Korea does not have surplus labor. They have the lowest birth rate of any country at one baby-per-woman, even lower than Japan and Singapore. A generation from now, the population of Korea will be cut in half.
So they face a stark dilemma: Either build robots or start having sex again.
I think you mean "start having babies again" (Score:2)
Not sure about Korea but I'm guessing they're having the same problem Japan is having, they want to have the cake (lots of babies) and eat it too (man and women both working full time jobs without pausing to care for those babies, and employers hiring women with kids when they can't make 'em work 30 hours unpaid overtime because somebody has to watch jr).
I mean, what's the point of having kids if you never get to se
More people will study for civil service exam (Score:1)
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Jobs the new Welfare (Score:2, Redundant)
If someone can have a tool or machine that can build themselves a car, why should they pay me to get it done? That basically means my existence at that point is holding people back and has to be accommodated for.
Just because I exist means a more efficient and better method of production is eliminated?
It's basically welfare at that point. I am being given a task just to keep me from rioting or going crazy? How have I made life better? Being given a job that can be done better if I didn't exist is a charitabl
Re: Jobs the new Welfare (Score:3)
Interesting that you think charity and welfare are negatives. Have you ever had to rely on either to survive? You might see them much differently then.
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Well, we all rely on charity to survive. For example, the charity of soldiers who served on the front lines. Teachers who taught me with a crappy paycheck etc.
Now as for welfare, does the fact that I use infrastructure count? Of course I am dependent on that. As for getting a welfare check .. if not me directly .. I would be naive to assume somebody somewhere didn't help me or my family/ancestors financially at some point in history.
OK, so now that I have acknowledged both charity and welfare as being USEFU
Correct title: Learn ways to work (Score:2)
They're hoping new technology can provide replacement jobs. What happens when capital replaces labour? That's what these job-losses mean and no-one is talking about it. We define ourselves by our contribution to society. It in turn, defines our socioeconomic status. Plus, it's a central plank in the revenue mechanisms of most governments: When people lose jobs, government loses revenue.
That includes the government revenue-raising: It must work when machines are performing the labour.